If you have your old iPhone

Use these steps to back up your Apple Watch before pairing with your new iPhone.

Update your old iPhone

Before you switch your Apple Watch to a new iPhone, update your old iPhone and update your Apple Watch. It could take from several minutes to an hour for the update to complete. You might want to update overnight or wait until you have time, and make sure that both your devices are charged.

Check your Health and Activity settings

If you back up using iCloud, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and make sure that Health is on.

Open the Apple Watch app on your new iPhone, then pair your watch with your new iPhone.

Try to restore from a backup. Make sure that your iPhone and Apple Watch are up to date, otherwise you might not see your backup in the list. You will lose Activity, Workouts, or settings on your watch that changed between the last backup and now. If you use iCloud in iOS 11 and later, Health and Activity data is stored in iCloud and automatically kept up to date on devices where you're signed in with the same Apple ID.

If you’re asked to restore from a watch backup, select the most recent backup.

If you don't have a backup, you need to set up your Apple Watch as new.

Follow the onscreen steps to finish setting up.

Start using your Apple Watch with your new iPhone. You might need to wait a few days for all your iCloud data to appear.

If you have your old iPhone and you didn't erase it

Unpair your Apple Watch from your old iPhone. Then choose one of these options depending on when you set up your new iPhone:

If you just restored your new iPhone from a recent backup, pair your devices. Make sure that your iPhone and Apple Watch are up to date, otherwise you might not see your backup in the list. When you're asked, restore from a watch backup. Your recent Activity, Workouts, or settings content might be lost depending on how old the backup is.

If you transferred your content to your new iPhone using iTunes, but my Health and Activity content is missing?

If you use iCloud to keep Health up to date on your old iPhone, your data will automatically update on your new iPhone whenever you're connected to Wi-Fi and signed in to iCloud. On your old iPhone and your new one, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and make sure that Health is on.

If you don't use iCloud, you can try to restore from an iTunes backup of your old iPhone. If you have your old iPhone and didn't erase it, make a new iCloud backup or encrypted iTunes backup. Then erase your new iPhone and restore it from the new backup. Remember to pair your Apple Watch and iPhone again. If you use iTunes, make sure that you encrypt your backup.

If you don't have your old iPhone or you can't back it up, you can't recover your Health and Activity content.